I hit the Swift Sunday and caught the best fish I have ever caught in MA outside the deerfield. It was a fat 16" bow. About 1/2 way down the fishable section there is a nice graval bed. On it the fish seemed to be in spawning mode, even thought those fish will never spawn. A few larger bows were chasing a bunch of smaller brookie's off the bed tring to claim territory. I try on a #16 humpy and start working the brookies in the back planning to work my way up. Then I cast to a brookie just behind and to the inside of a really nice bow. As the brookie goes for it the bow rushes over almost jumping over the brookie's back and takes it and then goes running. Nice fish. Caught a few more brookie's too. it was nice to see Bob on the river. All and all I like that little river but I wish it didn't get so much pressure. There where 9 fishermen on that river that day. I bet there are almost always 3-4 guys on that river from April to October, 10+ on the weekends. We really need to put more work into developing some more rivers in the area. I can think of 5 or six local stream that can be good brookie and brown rivers with some more work. Is anyone a memeber of TU and can gewt me involved?

Are you talking about the Swift in Belchertown? If you are then there are a few other options in the area for small stream fishing. The Deerfield, Millers and Westfield are all much prettier and generally less crowded options as well. I find the pressure on the Swift overwhelming and don't fish there - even when it was only 10 minutes from my back door. To me the place resembles an irrigation canal in the upper section. There are some fish in the Y pool, but not much until you hit the effluent pipe below the hatchery. Email me if you want a few other spots to check out in Western MA.